Researchers cooking up better tools for soldiers

NATICK -- Tossed from an airplane, dragged through the mud and hurled from a Humvee. It must be able to withstand at least 80-degree temperatures for two years or 100 degrees for six months.

It is not a U.S. Army soldier. It is his honey BBQ beef sandwich.

At the 78-acre Natick Soldiers Systems Center, 1,800 scientists, engineers and innovators are working to build a better soldier. Research and development projects ranging from creating battle-ready, easy-to-eat nutritious food, to inventing a more flame-resistant uniform, more protective helmets, more user-friendly medic packs and energy-efficient, easy-to-install tents are under way.

The latest generation of MREs (Meals Ready To Eat) are designed to be easy for soldiers to carry and eat while on patrol or on a mission away from base camp; they provide nutritional support but still taste good.

"The Army has changed its attitude 180 degrees where it comes to food," said Jeremy Whitsitt, technology integration analyst in the Combat Feeding Program, acknowledging a decade ago there was more of a "you'll eat it and you'll like it mentality." The soldiers ate some of it, but no one longed for a second helping.

The latest innovation is the First Strike Ration, or FSR, a pouch containing all the food a soldier in the field needs to fuel them for a day, at 2,900 calories. It registers at half the weight of three traditional MREs.

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Each item is required to have a shelf life of three years.

"Most operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are dismounted; the entire supply system rests on the backs of the soldiers," said Whitsitt.

Food scientists have incorporated supplements, such as anti-oxidants and phytonutrients, into the portable food to help the "warfighters," as they care called in Natick, reach optimal performance. The orange pound cake includes 300 milligrams of Omega-3 fish oil but without the fishy taste; the magic of science found a way to mask it in the moist, citrus treat. The beef-jerky snacks include caffeine.

"We look at trends, just like places like Applebee's, T.G.I. Friday's and the 99 do," said Whitsitt. "A few years ago buffalo chicken was all the rage, so we incorporated it into our meals."

New items coming soon to the battlefield include a jalapeno pepper-jack beef patty and a Mexican chicken sandwich.

Annual field tests are conducted, where new items as well as current menu items are tasted and rated by focus groups of soldiers in Afghanistan. The results of those tests determine which items are added and which are tossed to prevent "menu fatigue."

The motto on the wall in the lab in Natick says it all: "Warfighter recommended. Warfighter tested. Warfighter approved."

The components of a meal pack are irrelevant if the food is stale or spoiled when a soldier opens it. Scientists use a variety of techniques to keep the meals fresh, including ingredients to control pH and moisture content and adding anti-microbial compounds. The meals also require a complex packaging system.

Enter Chris Thellen of Lowell, a plastics engineer who earned his bachelor's and master's degrees as well as his Ph.D. from UMass Lowell. He spends his days creating innovative plastic packaging for the MRE's in the Polymer Center for Excellence at the Natick Soldiers System Center alongside nine other plastics engineers.

"We have to keep everything that could possibly spoil food out," said Thellen. "Oxygen, water vapor, insects and rodents. Beetles cannot eat through this packaging. It is a system of layered plastics."

Each layer has it own job: Keep out oxygen, block water vapor, or provide strength. Each begins with hundreds of tiny plastic pellets Thellen feeds into an enormous machine of funnels and tubes he equates to the adult version of the Play-Doh Fun Factory.

As important as a well-fueled soldier is to preserving democracy, so is a well-rested soldier.

Jean Hampel, team leader of the Fabric Structures Team at Natick is working to make tents more energy-efficient, comfortable for soldiers and easy to assemble.

Desert tents need to be lightweight and durable. The move to make them more energy-efficient, through the use of flame-resistant Thinsulate insulation and other strategies, is projected to save about $500 million annually.

"One of the big criticisms is we are air-conditioning the desert," she said. "The guys out in the desert have more important things to think of than closing the door.

Hampel also demonstrated fabrics that have been produced with lighting built into them to be used inside tents and said there is a push to switch from fluorescent to LED lighting not only for the cost savings, but because studies have shown the clean white LED light improves cognitive abilities.

When soldiers do need to fight the enemy, they need to do so as efficiently as possible. And what better place to gather ideas of how to make things better than from the soldiers themselves?

At the beginning of last year, an Iowa National Guard squad in Afghanistan discussed a 2 1/2-hour firefight. One of the soldiers made an off-hand comment that manning the machine gun would be easier if they could carry ammunition on their backs that fed into the gun like Jesse Ventura's character in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Predator.

Staff Sgt. Vincent Winkowski did not think the idea was crazy. The crew began cobbling together a prototype out of a couple of old backpack frames, ammo cans, zips ties, a Bungee cord and repair parts from a vehicle. They sent it to Dave Roy, the project manager for the Quick Reaction Cell at the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center.

In 48 days there was an operational prototype, not made from scrap parts. It was sent to Afghanistan to be battlefield-tested. The design was tweaked to lengthen the feed chute and add a carrying handle to the top of the pack.

"The way it used to work is the biggest guy would carry the machine gun and the second biggest guy would carry the ammo," said Roy, a retired Army captain, adding with the new backpack dubbed the "Ironman" the gunner can carry 500 rounds of ammo on his back, making him a more formidable, efficient warrior.

Today there are 21 "Ironman" backpacks being used in Afghanistan. The original MacGyver-style prototype fashioned by the soldiers now sits in the Military Museum at Fort Dodge, Iowa.

Coming Tuesday: a look at the Doriot Climate Chambers and the development of better equipment including helmets and flame-resistant uniforms.

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